Can Acronis software help restore encrypted files (using Vista advanced folder properties) when hard drive fails completely?

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If, when logged on as user with name XYZ, I use Windows Vista Professional (or Ultimate) facility to encrypt (via right click in Windows Explorer, Properties, Advanced, Encrypt contents to secure data) an entire folder and its contents (including subfolders), for example to protect data, then as I understand it, I can back this up using Acronis software (e.g. I have Acronis True Image Home 10 on one pc, Acronis True Image Home 11 on another), and when I restore it to another location, I can still view the files in that folder in the restored location when logged on to my original pc as XYZ, but not when logged on as another user (because Vista will only decrypt the restored files for user XYZ).

That's fine if I need to restore and my original pc and is hard disk still work, but what if the disk fails on my original pc? When I restore from a full image of the disk on to a new hard disk, and log on as XYZ, will I still be able to view the files I encrypted before? I am worried that somehow Vista will think that the XYZ user on the new hard disk that is restored might be different from the original XYZ user, and hence will refuse to decrypt the files (certainly Vista doesn't allow a user account created on another Vista pc on the network with the same name XYZ to view the files).

Vista may actually use something more than just the user name (perhaps something to do with the hardware) to identify a user.

Anyone know more about this? Also, is the situation similar with Windows 7?

Note: I am only talking about encrypting individual folders here (and their contents), not encrypting the entire hard drive using bit-locker.

Thanks for your help

Sat, 12/05/2009 - 19:01
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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While I have not encrypted like what you indicate.
I can tell you that the encryption is by user id certificate and not a hard drive disk id. Based on this, if you take a parition backup of your C: drive and then your HD crashes you should be able to restore the backup onto the new HD and windows (and its users contained there within the restore) should remain happy.

Thu, 01/07/2010 - 01:19
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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mvp

The issue though is that Acronis backs up the encrypted files and keep them encrypted in the backup.
When you restore these files, they will be encrypted.
If the same user profile that was used to encrypt the files is still on the same computer, then this user can use the files.
If for any reason the same user is not available, or the user profile has not been restored, then the files cannot be read. In this case, if the user has a backup up of their EFS certificate and this backup is available, you can restore access to the files. If no EFS certificate backup is available, there are expensive tools that might help recover the key from the previous disk (the original user password is still needed). If the disk is completely out of commision, the encrypted files are lost forever.

The right thing to do is to backup EFS encrypted files and to store them decrypted in the back up. Then the user can protect the backup some other way if so desired.

Wed, 12/15/2010 - 17:57
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